Photub

I posted on Twitter a while ago about what I've been up to. The short of it, at least. The medium of it, goes something like this.

On July 13th, 2008, my fiance and I took our vows and were married in an art gallery (The Print Center). It's exhibit during our wedding was the 82nd Annual International Competition: Photography. The wedding could not have gone better and the few photographs we've seen so far from our photographer made us really happy.

The next morning, our plane took off from Philadelphia International Airport at 5:30 am, for San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where we were originally going to get a bus to Copan. However, a few days prior to leaving we decided to instead go straight to Roatan and spend the 3 days originally allotted for Copan at a tiny bed and breakfast, Sante Wellness Center. Our stay there was amazing. We then proceeded to Half Moon Bay/West End on Roatan where we found peace and comfort for the remainder of our trip.

My wife and I both took pictures (mine) (hers).

The trip was lots of fun and when we got back, I got sick. At first I thought it was malaria, and then dengue fever, but I was never diagnosed with either and seemed to the doctor, to be just some random thing I picked up along the way home.

Matt Mullenweg, a founding developer of WordPress (this blog being one of the only in the world not powered by it), and photo hobbyist, has recently been a victim of camera theft from checked baggage.

CameraPorn has a bunch of tips for keeping your equipment safe while traveling.

If you're just learning about digital photography (or film) in your spare time, as I am, or are a full time studio shooter, traveler, or other paid camera-slinger you undoubtably subscribe to some photography magazines. I for one keep getting Outdoor Photographer even though my subscription ran out; thanks! I also subscribe to ShutterBug. I find that ShutterBug is insightful for thinking about new techniques and equipment to buy, whilst Outdoor Photographer is mostly just inspiring with some sprinkles of technique. Both magazines, I think are geared more towards learning than say, American Photo or any of those artsy or journalism ones. (Note: I love "artsy" photography, I just don't subscribe.)

However, the purpose of this blog isn't necessarily to point out good magazines that you can get in print, although I guess that might not be a bad idea for a future article about off-screen learning, but in fact it is about the numerous resources of the World Wide Web. There are many great blogs out there that update their content much more regularly than I, and in fact with much more insightful and useful tips and articles. That isn't to say that you should stop reading Photub of course. If you've been a reader of Photub for any length of time, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

The blogs that I am listing in this post, are blogs that I consider great additions to your RSS subscriptions—those blogs that probably have enough new content for books or bi-monthly magazines in themselves:

In no particular order...

1. The Online Photographer: The Online Photographer packs a wallop of new commentary, reviews, techniques and personal adventures into a blog that is updated fairly frequently.
2. Photocritic: Perhaps one of my favorite blogs, is this one. The authors always have something interesting to share, and do a good job presenting it. The critiques that are occassionally done are quite helpful to new and upcoming photographers, and the DIY attitude helps create some really useful and fun tools. Of note is the DIY Pringles can macro lens, that I have been wanting to try out.
3. Strobist: Everything you'd ever want or need to know about effective flash photography is right here in this blog. Literally courses of information are contained on the pages of this blog. It's also not all about flash photography. Consider the recent series about Flickr and what it can do for your photography career. Insightful articles, interesting topics and amazing techniques make this truely one of the best photography blogs on the internet.
4. Photojojo: While not really a blog per se, Photojojo's unique style and unique media (email newsletter), make it in a class of it's own. I include it in this list because they do have an RSS feed, making it "blog like." I have just one complaint about Photojojo and that is that they often seem to post stuff late, after it's already been posted elsewhere. Nevertheless, Photojojo has knocked my socks off more than a few times with interesting ideas, it's creative writing style and overall growth.
5. Digital Photography School: Anyone looking for tips can always find something at DPS. Choose a "Random Tip" or read them all. It's easily becoming an encyclopedia of techniques, buying tips, etc. for the beginner, casual student and the advanced amateur.
6. Andy Frazer's Night Photography Blog: Taking pictures at night can yeild some extremely interesting results, but not many will give you insight on creating breathtaking images at night without the flash. Andy Frazer does. You'll see lots of examples of compelling night imagery, if nothing else.
7. After Capture: The only site listed here, that actually is a monthly publication, actually has a decent blog. The blog talks, interestingly enough, about post production of your images. Becomming a "post production prince" might not happen overnight, but it'll probably happen faster with the reading of some of the articles here.
8. DIYPhotography.net: Face it, photography equipment is expensive, and we see time and time again, that a cheap light tent provides excellent results. DIYPhotography.net is all about creating cheap equipment to aide in the creation of great photographs. It's a wonderful collection and continues to grow.

The web is full of great content, and with RSS being used by nearly everyone, there certainly isn't any reason (other than time) that you can't be informed of the latest photography happenings, techniques and ideas every 15 or 20 minutes. Surely there are other great blogs out there that I did not address, but these are the ones I read on a semi-daily basis. If you think your blog should be on this list, please submit it for review, and I'll take a look.

After being disconnected from as many electronic devices as possible (aside from my Nikon D70s), on our weeklong trip to Caye Caulker, Belize in Central America, I'd like to share some photos from the trip.

When BH Photo Video isn't serving up orders, or helping it's customers on 9th Ave, it's sponsoring seminars, and sending emails out to all it's customers regarding them. They aren't just in New York, and there happens to be one in Philadelphia on April 15th, a date I won't actually be in Philadelphia.

This particular seminar,Travel Photography in the Digital World, will "Unravel the mysteries of digital photography with Ralph Lee Hopkins and Bob Krist." Looks interesting to me, and probably would have been helpful for my upcoming trip to Belize from April 1st - 8th. It's always a timing issue.

Landscape Photography UK, has a beautiful gallery of Landscape Photographs from different parts of the UK. Aside from purchasing prints, the site also provides a guide to photographing Anglesey, North Wales, which comes at a good time since I am possibly planning a trip to the UK. Not sure i'll get there though.

Nothing worse than tourists in your tourism pictures. Or, if you live in a big city and would like to just go out and take pictures of it... Same thing goes. Not to worry anymore, How to Remove Tourists from Your Photos takes a look at getting rid of those pixels that muck up a perfectly good shot.